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University of Bristol Department of Historical Studies Best undergraduate dissertations of 2013 Katie Abbott From Failure to Success: A Re-Evaluation of the Special Operations Executive's Achievements in France, 1940-1941 The Department of Historical Studies at the University of Bristol is com- mitted to the advancement of historical knowledge and understanding, and to research of the highest order. We believe that our undergraduates are part of that endeavour. In June 2009, the Department voted to begin to publish the best of the an- nual dissertations produced by the department’s final year undergraduates (deemed to be those receiving a mark of 75 or above) in recognition of the excellent research work being undertaken by our students. This was one of the best of this year’s final year undergraduate disserta- tions. Please note: this dissertation is published in the state it was submitted for examination. Thus the author has not been able to correct errors and/or departures from departmental guidelines for the presentation of dissertations (e.g. in the formatting of its footnotes and bibliography). © The author, 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the prior permission in writing of the author, or as expressly permitted by law. All citations of this work must be properly acknowledged. 1026574 HIST33101 History Undergraduate Dissertation 2013 From Failure to Success: A Re-Evaluation of the Special Operations Executive's Achievements in France, 1940-1941 1 1026574 HIST33101 Contents Introduction p.3 Chapter 1 p.11 Chapter 2 p.19 Chapter 3 p.27 Conclusion p.36 Bibliography p.39 2 1026574 HIST33101 Introduction “Set Europe ablaze” was the order given by Churchill in July 1940 that indicated the birth of Britain’s secret organisation, the Special Operations Executive (SOE).1 Designed to ‘inspire, control and assist the nationals of oppressed countries,’2 SOE was an institution constructed to co-ordinate acts of defiance and sabotage against the Nazis across Europe.3 ‘F Section’ was immediately established as the main organisational body for British subversion in France. Other SOE sections also operated in the country, such as the EU/P which worked with the Poles and RF with the Free French. But F Section became intrinsically connected with the formation and expansion of the Resistance, and in doing so established itself as one of the most important departments acting in France. During its existence, the performance of F Section was constantly being scrutinised by its military and political opponents. Parliamentary member Dame Irene Ward referred to the organisation derisively as ‘amateurish’4 while Buckmaster (head of F Section from July 1941) recorded ‘being asked by inquisitive generals about the usefulness of our organisation and the efficiency of its staff.’5 Yet contemporaries were not the only ones to question the legitimacy of the organisation. Indeed, the history of SOE has been ‘the object of allegations or counter allegations about its worth and efficiency’ and historians have all too often measured the successes and failures of covert operations by the extent to which sabotage stalled the German advances.6 West suggested that ‘it must be open to considerable doubt 1 Churchill, cited in A. Funk, ‘Churchill, Eisenhower, and the French Resistance’, Military Affairs, Vol. 45, No. 1, (1981), 30 2 H. Dalton, cited in D,Stafford, ‘The Detonator Concept: British Strategy, SOE and European Resistance after the Fall of France’, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 10, No. 2, (1975), 199 3 M.R.D Foot, SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France 1940-1944, (London, 1966), xvii 4 I. Ward, cited in P. Howarth, Undercover: The Men and Women of the Special Operations Executive, (London, 1980), 162 5 M. Buckmaster, They Fought Alone, (London, 1959), 21 6 D. Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, 1940-1945: A Survey of the Special Operations Executive, (London, 1980), 4 3 1026574 HIST33101 whether unconventional warfare…practiced by SOE, played any part in shortening the war,’7 while Stafford argued that ‘secret armies in Europe were no longer seen as carrying the key to victory.’8 Conversely, Wheeler argued that SOE ‘was quite simply a failure,’ though he also acknowledged that it was an important ‘phenomenon’ at the time.9 More specifically it has been argued that between 1940 and 1941 F Section largely failed to achieve anything in terms of covert action and as Foot claimed, ‘wasted its time in arid and intricate disputes about what it ought to do.’10 West suggested that ‘SOE had little to boast of in the summer of 1941’11 and operational disasters meant that ‘by mid-1942 F Section was virtually back to square one, with hardly any assets left in the field.’12 In terms of sabotage, Mangold argued that although subversion was becoming more frequent, it ‘did not yet constitute a serious danger for the Germans.’13 Equally Richelson questioned whether SOE activities in 1941 had any immediate effects.14 Historians have looked to explain why SOE was unable to carry out secret missions in France in this early period, despite enjoying greater successes after 1941. Howarth suggested that SOE’s activities were seriously hindered in 1940-41 because of the shortage of airplanes,15 while West argued that the lack of counter-intelligence and the lapses in security– as well as ‘sheer ineptitude’- put F Section at a disadvantage.16 A number of external factors also contributed to greater success after 1941 that lay beyond SOE’s control:- Kedward for instance, argued that the loss of Vichy identity in 1942 (following the German occupation of 7 N. West, Secret War: The Story of SOE, Britain’s Wartime Sabotage Organisation, (London, 1992), 319 8 Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, 50 9 M. Wheeler, ‘The SOE Phenomenon’, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 16, No. 3, (1981), 514 10 Foot, SOE in France, 148. Beevor also shares a similar outlook in J. Beevor, SOE: Recollections and Reflections 1940-1945, (London 1981), 152 11 West, Secret War, 44 12 West , Secret War, 53 13 P. Mangold, Britain and the Defeated French: From Occupation to Liberation, 1940-1944,(London, 2012), 101 14 J.Richelson, A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century, (Oxford, 1995), 147 15 Howarth, Undercover, 25 16 West, Secret War, 138-156 4 1026574 HIST33101 the Southern Zone and the implementation of the Service du Travail Obligatorie) provoked widespread dissent and allowed for the mobilisation of resistance networks.17 Indeed, 1942 was seen as a significant turning point in the war. Militarily, it was a determining year on both fronts: in the East the Russians were proving to be unbreakable opponents, whilst in the West Americans had landed in North Africa, thereby changing the grand strategy of the war.18 Meanwhile Moulin’s return to France (from London) in 1942 represented a formal link between the Free French, Charles de Gaulle and the clandestine activities organised in London, which allowed for a greater degree of organisation and coherency in the Resistance movement.19 So as the war progressed after 1942, it was easier for SOE to create ties with, on one hand, the ever-expanding Resistance in France, and, on the other, with the Americans and Russians who were now supplying them extra personnel, aircrafts, money and arms. Although emphasis on F Section’s successes has concentrated on the period after 1941, academics have not completely denounced the first two years of its existence as a complete waste of time and resources. Beevor recognised that F Section had learned many lessons and that it was even ‘beginning to establish the nucleus of an organisation in several areas.’20 Foot also admitted that trial and error before 1942 had provided SOE ‘with some hard and necessary insights into the practical troubles of arming any large body of resisters.’21 The first completed act of sabotage, Operation JOSEPHINE B (which destroyed 6 transformers at 17 H.R. Kedward, ‘The Maquis and the Culture of the Outlaw,’ in R.Austin, R.Kedward (eds), Vichy France and the Resistance: Culture and Ideology, (Totowa, 1985), 236 18 Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, 50 19 H.R Kedward, Occupied France, Collaboration and Resistance 1940-1944, (Oxford, 1985), 58 20 Beevor, SOE: Recollections and Reflections, 152 21 M.R.D. Foot, SOE: An Outline History of the Special Operations Executive 1940-1946, (London, 1984), 218 5 1026574 HIST33101 the power stations in Pessac in June), does feature predominantly as a major success for the Section in 1941.22 Still scholarship on this time period remains narrow and limited. Chronological narratives of individuals and operations help to explain the development of events, but they fall short of providing any detailed analyses of F Section’s contribution to either the Resistance or the broader war endeavour in the early years of the war. For example, Foot suggested that the efforts in 1940-1941 had ‘not quite been in vain,’ but his subsequent commentary of what was ‘done and undone’ is so preoccupied with logistical arrangements and details of the personnel, that the long and short term consequences of the activities become unheeded.23 Quite simply, missions that achieved anything other than sabotage, or similar active forms of resistance against the enemy, appear to lack significant detail or sustained analysis in scholarly work. This thesis looks to analyse the achievements of the department in relation to the early resistance movements in France. More specifically it will explore the ways in which F Section’s agents created initial resistance circuits in the early phases of the Occupation as a marker of the SOE’s accomplishments.

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